Jonathan Papelbon

One of the brightest spots and the most pleasant surprise of the 2006 season was the season turned in by Jonathan Papelbon. The 25-year-old showed excellent poise on the mound and filled the closer's role like Mike Vrabel fills gaps in an offensive line.

The biggest success story of 2006 has turned into one of the biggest questions of 2007. Will, and should, he be moved to the starting rotation, potentially giving the Sox more quality innings and filling a spot in the rotation cheaply? Or should he remain in the closer's role, where he has already experienced massive success? Either would be quite valuable to the team. The main question seems to be where will he perform the best, and where would he be the most valuable?

I'd like to introduce a new possiblity. I'm probably not the first one to say this, but I've rarely seen it discussed. Why not start Papelbon as a reliever (not the closer) and move him into the rotation by, say, July?

Here are the reasons I think this would be a good idea:

-Injury. The worst thing that could happen is for Papelbon so have a significant injury that causes him to miss lots of time. Papelbon already has experienced some arm trouble and was shut down in September because of it. He constantly said that it was just a precautionary thing and that he would have been pitching if the games had meant anything, and perhaps this is true. But there is significant evidence that either moving him into the rotation right away or leaving him as closer would increase his risk for injury. First, any time a pitcher's innings pitched increase by more than 50 or so from year to year, his risk for injury goes way up. This is why Jon Lester was kept on a very strict pitch count limit in April last year, and why people are calling Justin Verlander a big injury risk. Second, the usage of Papelbon last year was far from ideal. He would often pitch three or four nights in a row, and then would go a week or so between "save situations." This seemed to not only hurt his performance but also certainly increases his risk of injury.

-Performance. Simply put, Papelbon isn't ready to start yet. He has a tremendous fastball and a good, but wild, splitter. He needs to develop a third pitch and become confident with it before he can be a starter. Starting him in the bullpen, throwing 2-3 innings at a time, would give him time to work on this.

-Leverage. MLB teams' adherance to the save rule and its offspring, the one-inning closer, is one of the more backwards, aggravating and impractical things in all of sports. There is no reason that a team's best relief pitcher should be used with no outs in the ninth inning and his team up by three while sitting in the bullpen with the game tied in the eighth inning while an inferior pitcher takes the hill.

With Papelbon in the bullpen, ready to go 2-3 innings as needed, he will be able to keep games close, pitching any combination of the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th innings as needed. We know he can handle the pressure, and we know he can pitch well in such a situation.

So here's my proposal. Sign / trade for 2 solid pitchers and go into the season with a rotation of Schilling, Beckett, Wakefield, FA 1 and FA 2. Begin Papelbon in the bullpen, pitching 2-3 inning stints, but making sure he gets 1-3 days off in between appearances. Have him work on a third pitch and gain confidence in said pitch. From April-July, aim for him to pitch about 80 innings. That's about 4-5 innings a week, or two appearances. Given that close games don't always come regularly, we will need other solid pitchers in the bullpen who we can rely on, and we will sometimes have to use Papelbon in games that aren't close just to get him some work. But if used correctly he should be able to help us a lot.

By the end of July, re-evaluate. If Papelbon seems ready to start (that is, his third pitch is well-developed and he hasn't shown any problems with endurance or other injuries), try to trade one of your starters for help somewhere else. Failing that, go to a six-man rotation (if everyone is pitching well) or simply demote your least productive starter to the bullpen. Then put Papelbon in the rotation for the stretch drive and the playoffs. Aim for him to pitch 50-60 more innings in August and September, or ten starts, giving him 130-140 for the year.

Assuming we make the playoffs, Papelbon can either remain in the rotation (if Tito et al think he is one of the four best) or be put back into the bullpen to be a long reliever extraodinaire.

Now, I doubt this will happen, mainly because the Sox tried the "relief ace" thing a while ago and it was sort of a disaster. But why not?

And if you're looking for an example that worked, I'll point you in the direction of Johan Santana circa 2002-03.

(Of course, the counterpoint is Francisco Liriano...)